Chapter I: Social Sciences History - History is the continuous, systematic

narrative and research into past human events as

Is the study of human behavior, human relationships interpreted through historiographical paradigms or
and their byproducts that include society, culture theories.
and personality. Economics - is a social science that seeks to analyze
Is a major category of academic disciplines, and describe the production, distribution, and
concerned with society and the relationships among consumption of wealth.
individuals within a society. It in turn has many Political Science - is an academic and research
branches, each of which is considered a "social discipline that deals with the theory and practice of
science . politics and the description and analysis of political
The social sciences include economics, political systems and political behavior.
science, human geography, demography, Psychology - is an academic and applied field
psychology, sociology, anthropology, archaeology, involving the study of behavior and mental
jurisprudence, history, and linguistics. processes.
The term is also sometimes used to refer specifically Sociology - is the systematic study of society and
to the field of sociology, the original 'science of human social action.
society', established in the 19th century. Culture
Socialization
Characteristics of Social Science Social inequality
A body of knowledge that develops theories Social groups
Principles and laws to understand, explain, analyze Organizations
Predict and control human behavior. Social change
A body of knowledge that has a built in, self- Social institution
correcting mechanisms to insure objective, valid and
reliable results to allow other scientists to control and Scientific Method of Social Science
verify the scientific activities from the start of the
Scientific Method - Is a problem-solving process of
conclusion of the study.
finding evidence to either reject or accept set of
A body of knowledge that is subjected to rigorous Knowledge that leads to theory formulation, theory
testing and verifiability to allow replication of the study recasting and theory supporting activities.
by the Scientific community and the public.
Define the problem
A body of knowledge that is very critical and does
Review the literature
not accept results and findings unless they have been
Form a hypothesis
subjected to the standardized scientific procedure to
Collect and analyze a data
allow replication of the study.
Draw conclusions
A body of knowledge where the findings and results
Report Results
of the studies are comparable and bring about
consensus among the scientists and the public.

Divisions of Social Science Different Method of Social Science

Case study - is a detailed, in-depth, intensive
Pure Social Science - Aims to discover knowledge to
descriptive investigation of an individual or group or
develop conceptsprinciples, theories, and laws that
community, experiences, program and behaviors for
will lead to understanding and to explaining human
a specific period of time.
behaviors and the social world that satisfy human
curiosity. Historical study - is the scientific and critical
examination of the past experiences, artifacts,
Applied Social Science - Studies human behavior and
events and records of the past to understand and
the social world to get practical scientific results, and
explain the present and to predict the future on the
to test the applicability of theories, laws and
basis of past events.
principles to solve human problems.
Archival research - is a method of collecting data
Anthropology - is the holistic "science of man", a
from the census data, birth certificates, newspapers
science of the totality of human existence. The
and other existing records to support a theory of
discipline deals with the integration of different
hypotheses, to get a picture of the total situation,
aspects of the social sciences, humanities, and
and to check the reliability of the results of the data
human biology.
obtained by other methods.
Human Geography - is the branch of social sciences
Exploratory study - is a method of discovering
that deals with the study of people and their
events and their relationship with one another by
communities, cultures, economies and interactions
noting and recording on-going events to provide the
with the environment by studying their relations
with and across space and place.
 foundation for a more systematic and rigorous
testing of hypotheses.
Ethnography - is the descriptive study of cultures
and people. It describes the customary behavior,
thoughts of people and their tradition, and how they
are related to their environment.
Participatory research - is a study that aims to
understand social reality by knowing how the people
construct their reality through group activities like
role plays, drawing, body maps, and drama
techniques for participatory interaction and
advocates the involvement of participants in the
entire research process and in an action phase.
Feminist research - is a study that focuses on the
liberation and emancipation of women.
Experimental study - It tests the validity and
reliability of hypotheses, and principles by
introducing changes in the research situation and by
observing the results under highly controlled
researcher conditions.
Program evaluation study - it examines and
evaluates an intervention program or project to
determine how effective and useful it is in helping its
recipients
Interviewer assisted questionnaire which is
administered by the researcher who reads
the items and records the answers
Survey method - investigates the occurrences,
distribution and interrelations among variables in a
large and small randomly selected population by
using standardized questions but generalizes result
to larger groups.
Field study - requires the researcher to go out on the
field to study relationships and interactions among
the individuals in communities in a real-life situation
over a length of time or person to determine the
intensity of attitudes or feelings towards the subject.
Statistical tools - are tools that determine the
significance or acceptance of the data collected to
support or to reject the hypotheses in the study.
Parametric test such as the analysis of
variance, and coefficient of correlations.
Non-parametric test test like the chi
square and coefficient of concordance.

Tools of Social Sciences

Observation - is the use of five senses and other
scientific instruments to record data with the
objective of discovering relatively unknown events
Direct observation - does not require the
researcher to take part in the situation being
observed
participant observation - requires the
researcher to become a part of the group that
is to be observed
Test & scales - A test is a tool that contains a large
set of questions; the responses to the questions are
cumulated to determine the individual attributes.
The scale is a tool that requires a respondent to
react to an object or person to determine the
intensity of attitudes or feeling towards the object.
Interview -is a verbal exchange of questions and
answers between two or more persons for the
purpose of gathering valid and reliable research
data.
Unstructured interview is an "in-depth
information-seeking device" aimed to get
information that is not provided by the
respondent under normal conditions.
Structured interview uses fixed format
items; the questions are prepared ahead of
time and the interviewer reads the
questions to the respondent
Questionnaire - is a written set of standardized
fixed, formatted questions in a predetermined order
administered to respondents
Self-administered which can be completed
by the respondent themselves